Ammo Review: Federal’s Guard Dog .45 ACP Ammo Is No Chihuahua

On a whim, we picked up some Federal Guard Dog .45 ACP to try out. Not having shot this particular ammo before, we weren’t sure what to expect. In short, this was the pleasant surprise of the day.

Here’s why:

Federal Guard Dog is Expanding Full Metal Jacket ammunition. Yes, you heard that oxymoron right. It features a traditional lead base bullet has a hollow, but fully covered tip. The inside of the jacket is scored and filled with a squishy polymer substance. Upon impact, the flat nose of the bullet pushes back, and between the scoring to facilitate expansion and the pressure of the polymer filler pushing outwards, the projectile expands to a diameter of approximately 3 feet. We tested this by shooting through about 8 layers of light canvas material into soaking wet paper. The 3 foot number was a visual “still at the range estimate” so we broke out the calipers back at home and found that most bullets expanded to over 3/4 of an inch. Every bullet we shot showed dramatic expansion like this.

Ouch. Every round we shot expanded like this.

With it’s unique expansion model, Federal does not have to push the Guard Dog ammo to ridiculous velocities for it to perform. The combination of a 165 grain projectile in the .45 ACP load and normal pressures yielded an average of 1,053 feet per second as measured by our Shooting Chrony 15 feet from the muzzle. The felt recoil was shockingly light– especially compared to all the other self defense rounds we fired in the same session.

Oh, and it also looks very Lone Ranger-ish. Nickel plated case with a silver colored projectile. Very suave.